MLM Expert Advice

Well if you haven’t seen Soylent Green with Charlton Heston then the title of this article may have you wondering and even if you have seen the movie you’re probably wondering what does this have to do with building my MLM successfully.

For those that haven’t seen it, I apologize for the spoilers.  Soylent Green is set in a bleak future where people are surviving by consuming a foodstuff called Soylent.  Soylent comes in a number of colors but fights break out over Soylent Green because its the only color that is protein.  The Soylent Green chips are essentially made of ground people and Charlton Heston finds out but is then dragged off to be processed in the factory shouting “Soylent Green is PEOPLE!”.

Hopefully I didn’t ruin the movie for those who haven’t seen it yet.

But for those of you that are still reading… what does this have to do with MLM prospecting?

People are individuals, not numbers and not food to be consumed by your prospecting machine.  They will enter their information on your webpage or call and request information in response to your advertising because they like something about you.  They want to hear more from you because of:

• the way you look,
• the way you behave,
• the way you said something, or what you said,
• the education you provided them, or
• the articles you wrote

The point is they appreciate what you have to offer, they trust you and for that reason they request to find out more.

So keeping that in mind, the information you put out needs to be trustworthy.  The way you act needs to build trust as well.  Don’t lie about what you made or how long it took to do it.  Don’t simply regurgitate what someone else might be “selling” unless you’ve verified the truth of it and, I would even suggest, own it yourself and have derived a significant benefit.

Make what you write interesting, educational, but not boring.  I think all of us, regardless of how well we did or didn’t do in school, had a teacher or counsellor who stood out for us because they made learning fun.  Education does need to be informative but it doesn’t need to be boring.  At the same time you’re not trying to be a huckster… give people the truth.  Give them value.

The more people you help, the more money you will make.  So don’t worry about the green, concentrate on the people.

So you’re MLM company has a website package or your sponsor does and it has all the fancy bells and whistles on it.  Why aren’t people signing up?

First of all if its a website from your company its not about you, even if they allow for some personalization.  But even if you build your own website, people aren’t just going to sign up because you have a web presence.

Your prospects visiting your site are thinking:

• Who are you?
• Why should I care?

If you aren’t answering these questions the moment they get to your website then they have already moved on and you’ve lost potential business.

Whether its on iTunes or Amazon, people buy things because they feel that they are receiving value for their money.  They care because they expect to get a benefit and if you aren’t offering them one, no one will buy your product or join your opportunity.

You need to target your audience.  If your website is about joining your opportunity then you may want to identify with their pain of not having enough money at the end of the month or not having enough time left in the day or perhaps both.  Maybe they want to have more time for family and not be a wage slave.  The point is regardless of your target audience you need to share with them your knowledge and your experience regardless of how long you yourself may be involved in your opportunity.  Remember that no matter how flashy the website it still has to be about you and from you because people don’t buy from a website, they buy from a trusted brand, from people like you.

Now if you’re a beginner and you’ve not had any success yet in your chosen MLM, that should not stop you from branding yourself.

“People don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care.” — Anonymous

When you’re new you may think you have nothing to share but you have plenty of information.  For example you could invite people to learn about your journey in MLM, another reason to document what you do.  Alternatively you could explain how you felt when approached for the opportunity you are in, the reasearch you did, and why you decided to join.  And if you’ve tried other opportunities or different ways to make money you could always share what not to do so that they don’t make the same mistakes.  There are many things that you know even if you’re new and even if none of the above gives you an idea, you could always reasearch a topic and make yourself an “expert” on the subject or you could interview experts.

Regardless of what you are an expert on if you’re trying to get people to join your opportunity then you want to further brand yourself by letting people know what you’re not.  You are not a recruit’em and leave’m.  You are going to sponsor them not recruit them.  They will want to know that even after they have signed up that you’ll still be around to support them… so let them know.

Your goal with your website and your brand is to build trust, so if you are sincere and don’t pretend to know the answers when you don’t then people will value your sincerity when you tell them the truth.

I know I’ve concentrated mostly on your opportunity but if you want to market your product (and I suggest that you target only one product and not your entire, possibly diverse, product line) then the same rules apply.  Instead of talking about why you joined the opportunity you could advise them on issues that your product helps with and how to maximize the benefits of your product.

Essentially to brand yourself effectively on the internet your website needs to be an extension of you.  In fact its no different than branding yourself if the internet didn’t exist.  Be truthful, honest, forthright, and lead your prospects through the often frustrating process of making an intelligent decision by being willing to serve them even if they don’t sign up or buy what you have to offer.

For more tips on how to do this effectively you need to check out the free attraction marketing bootcamp.

I’m sure you’ve been to plenty of meetings where you’re told there are 3 pieces to the puzzle of being successful in your chosen MLM:

• business opportunity
• product
• you

Typically they go on to say that the business opportunity is supplied by the company and optimized to provide those that work hard an incredible income.  Additionally the product is provided for you and is of the highest quality.  Lastly, what you need to bring to the table is you.

After this its usually followed by the fact that the one thing you have to work on is you.  While I certainly subscribe to the philosoply of personal development, I would suggest that there is one other aspect of you that you need to work on and that is You, Inc. Brand yourself.

Every company out there, including MLMs, touts their brand.  From the pen you write with to the car you drive to the computer you are reading this article on, everything is branded.  If you want to be successful in marketing you need to brand yourself.

Consider the internet.  The World Wide Web proves the case for branding more than any product. Why? Because anybody can (and does) have a website.  But the ones you go back to are the ones you trust whether its MLMExpertAdvice.com or Google.com the point is the brand name tells you the visit will be worth your time… repeatedly.  The brand is a promise of the value that you will receive from your visit.

Email is the same.  You decide which emails you are going to read versus tossing in the trash unread based on personal branding… the name of the sender.  You know that you can trust the sender not to waste your time.

Now what I am about to say may go against what your sponsor or upline is telling you… you aren’t a (insert MLM company name here) distributor.  By that what I mean is you aren’t defined by that company nor are you limited by the title “distributor”. You are a brand.

Just like Starbucks, Coke, Pepsi, or Geico, you are a brand.  And the first thing any brand does is define itself.  What is it that your brand does that makes it different? Write it out in 15 words or less. Why the limit? Because your brand has a limited time to capture the attention anyone its presented to.  Your brand statement needs to grab your prospect quickly.

First figure out what things make you different than not only your competitors but your colleagues, your fellow MLMers.  Have you done anything recently to make you stand out?  What would your colleagues or your customers say is memorable or noteworth about you?

What feature and benefits does your brand bring to the market?  Are you timely so that your customers can count on your reliability?  Are you honest and forthright so that others can count on you and trust you?  What do you do that add value? And finally what do you want to be famous for?  This is your brand… and Your company’s vision.

Its ALL about YOU!

Again, we’re not in a sales business, we are in a relationship building business but regardless of what business we are in the thing that defines a busines is that you have something to offer.  The government offers us protection for paying taxes (though in this economy some may argue the worth of it).  Banks offer you interest if you loan them money by depositing it in your bank account.  The hot dog vendor offers you a heavenly creation on a bun if you give him some money (even my wife tells me I have an unhealthy infatuation with hot dogs… that or a well-crafted BLT).  The point is there has to be offer, an exchange or there is no business.

Whenever an offer is made it needs to address 4 quintessential thoughts that are running through the mind of your prospect whether they are stated or not:

1. What are you trying to sell me?
2. How much?
3. Why should I believe you?
4. What’s in it for me?

Don’t assume that what you are trying to offer or what your offer is worth is obvious to your prospect.  Are you offering them the ability to make money, spend more time with family, get out of the ratrace?  Remember you have to pick your target audience which means you have to also know what you are offering that audience.  Keep in mind that offer that fits everyone will get you no one.  If your audience is monkeys you will have a completely different offer than if they are lions.

If we take into account “How much” then we know that whatever we present has to be fair and has to have real value associated with it.

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
– Abraham Lincoln

I would take what President Lincoln said one step further… if you fool your prospect, you won’t have any prospects (people or otherwise).  If you become a master at making your offer you will impress your prospect not only once, but repeatedly until both you and the prospect are prosperous.  But that still leaves two more questions.

Why should anyone believe you? Before anyone will accept an offer, they need to believe in the person or company presenting it.  In other words you and your offer need to be credible.  This is why I have said that a good sponsor will never let you offer your product or opportunity yourself to people you know because people you know have even less reason to believe you are credible than people you don’t.  I’ll save building credibility for another article.

This leaves the final question… “what’s in it for me?”

What?

You mean you already told me what you are selling me and you think that’s enough?

I want to know what benefit am I going to get.  Buying a Lamborghini or Ferrari is less about the car’s performance and more about the prestige that you’ll feel from owning one.  Going to Whole Foods or your local Organic Grocer for the healthy food but whats important to you is having a healthier, longer life.  But you can’t just sell benefits, that only works short term.

If you aren’t addressing all 4 questions in your prospects mind then you’ll fail to address how decisions get made.

“People make their decisions based on emotion andjustify them with logic.” — Anonymous

If all you do is give people the benefits you are only feeding the emotional part of the decision equation and you have left the first three questions unaddressed.  Question 4 is emotion… 1 through 3 are the logic.

What (and how) are you offering?

Now I know better than to suggest anything is free because we all know (or should) that anything that sounds to good to be true… is.

In a previous article I talked briefly about the concept of an MLM Funded Proposal as a way to build a never-ending stream of leads.  Now I would like to go into a little bit more detail on the importance of this process and why you should consider it.

If you’ve been in multi-level marketing for awhile you know that your largest expense is advertising and the longer you’re in the business (and the faster you want to build) the larger that expense becomes.  The reason for this should be obvious to those who have been in the business for awhile but for those of you who are new-comers, not everyone you present to, no matter how good you become at building effective relationships, will want to join your business.  Why?  Some are already in another business, some don’t want to put the effort into anything, and some we’ll never know why.

So how do you offset this expense?  Well there is sales of your product but again this requires advertising in some form as well and if you’re new, you don’t have the money… after all one of the reasons you got started in the business was to have money to do the things you want to do.  Most of those in network marketing struggle because they don’t have enough money to properly build an effective multi-level marketing organization.  You need a way to have up-front money to cover your advertising and thats where the funded proposal comes into play.  So this is a technique that both the new as well as the seasoned multi-level marketer can use.

A funded proposal works in two (2) ways:

1. You can sell something like an e-book or a marketing system to people that are looking that generates money off of the initial sale.  There are many well planned out marketing systems out there.  Alternatively, if you are looking for product consumers rather than business builders, you can refer people to things of value to them in resolving issues that your product(s) help resolve.  In the process of doing this, you are helping those people out, and when they subscribe to what you are referring them to, you earn a commission off of that.
2. It provides you a stream of leads that you can present your product or your business to (depending on what type of funded proposal you put out).  I would suggest that if your funded proposal is material related to building a business that you present your business to the leads coming from it.  On the other hand if your funded proposal is providing people information on products similar to yours and the benefits of your product in resolving their problems then you want to only present products to the leads coming from it.

But there are tools you will need to have in place for any funded proposal to work:

• People need to know that your proposal is available
• You need to follow up with anyone that inquires about your proposal
• You must deliver the product you offered in the proposal
• The product should do or contain exactly what you said it would

Never offer as a funded proposal anything that you yourself have not researched, used, and derived benefit from.

How do you let people know about your proposal?  Well you have to advertise and yes it may cost you some money so you need to make sure that the advertising works and results in you having sufficient people buying the proposal to cover any advertising costs plus leave money over to pay for any other advertising that you do.  After all the intent was to pay for all of your advertising.

You need to have some form of autoresponder that kicks in the moment someone signs up.  For instance if you signed up to receive updates from this blog you would have been sent a welcome email personalized to you.  As much as I would like to, I don’t have time to personally welcome each person but my autoresponder does it for me.  When dealing with a funded proposal people will sign up to learn more and your autoresponder emails will trickle out to them a day or more apart, in order, to give them more details so that they purchase the product (or at the very least hear more from you and allow you to present your multi-level marketing business or product to them).

And never fail to deliver what you promised.  This is key, this is a relationship-killer if you fail to follow-through.  So always make sure that if you are using some information product developed by someone else that it is a product that is guaranteed to be delivered (and guaranteed to pay you when someone orders it).

If you want to learn the more secrets behind an effective MLM funded proposal and get 7 of the best online video’s you’ll ever watch subscribe to our FREE mlm funded proposal 7 Day Boot Camp Study Course.

I’ve written about the animal factors you will come across while prospecting — lions, koalas, owls, and monkeys — and discussed how best to present to each in order to have them take your opportunity seriously but if you don’t understand how a prospect is thinking you don’t know how to really effectively communicate with them.

Can you answer this question:

If You were Your Prospect, what would You Want?

If you can answer this question truthfully you will be able to get people to join your organization because you will bring to the market what the market wants.

I know how I’d want you to present to me:

1. Listen to what I want and show me that we are simpatico
2. Tell me, in short form, why you’re better than the competition.
3. Provide me with an easy to understand, informative, and fun system for marketing

Now this doesn’t mean you should all be trying to present your opportunity to me… I’m quite happy doing what I do today.  What it does mean is that if you could do this with any prospect, you will turn into a human winning machine.

Of these 3 wants, the first is key.  You must not only master this… you must kick butt.  If you are an effective listener you can build a relationship with me quickly by letting me talk and showing me that you are listening.  You can do this by:

• your body language
• making eye contact
• keeping your body open
• echoing words
• nods of your head
• leaning towards me

But as I said you need to kick butt at this so not only show me you are listening but show me you are listening carefully by:

• listening without interrupting
• paying attention
• using supportive body language
• paraphrasing not only the facts I presented but the feelings too

and you need to respond well to what I say by:

• asking me clarifying and/or probing questions
• restating what I said catching the essence
• summarizing facts and feelings
• being forward thinking

I want to feel like you genuinely care about me as an individual and that my success is crucial to you.

Michael Jordan said “I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.” He never accepted losing as an option. He focused on his skills and became a human winning machine.

Similarly, you need to focus when talking to any prospect. What matters is what your prospect needs, wants, thinks, desires, wishes, dreams, etc.  Nothing else is of importance.  If I am your prospect, the world starts and ends with me and thats the way you want it to be too.

When you accomplish this, you and I, your prospect, will have the same view point.

Now you can move on to presenting to me why you’re better than the competition but you better do it concisely.  This shows me you value my time and further strengthens our relationship.  You need to be able to address any questions I have by either answering me directly or pointing me at a specific resource that will answer my question.

Finally you can present your system for building a business.  It should be straight-forward enough that anyone can pick it up and run with it and be able to present it to someone else.

According to research done at Simon Fraser University,

• Average continuous attention span of a literate human: 8 seconds.
• Maximum possible continuous attention span for a literate human: 30 seconds.
• Average general attention span of a literate human: 10 – 12 minutes.

In other words, if you don’t grab my attention in 8 seconds, I’m off dealing with other things.  And even if you get my attention you will have it for at most 12 minutes.  So adhere to the KISS principle and make it as simple as possible.

If you can present to me and keep things simple and organized, I can make a quick choice and you have not only a better chance of me joining but you have a process that will allow you to become a human winning machine.

So now that we know how to communicate with the Lions, Koalas and the Owls…

Here we come,
walkin’ down the street.
We get the funniest looks
from ev’ry one we meet.
Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees
And people say we monkey around.
But we’re too busy singing
To put anybody down.

Well I probably just showed my age with a reference to the Monkees but their theme was apropos to the animal group I’m discussing today… the Monkeys.

While the Monkeys, like the Lions only make up 15% of the population, we all know one… and in fact several.  We count them as friends if only for the spontaneity and gregariousness.  They are the party planners, hosts and hostesses, the musicians and salespeople.  Monkeys as one might expect are playful, charming, people lovers.  If there is a party, they either started it, suggested it, or are the life of it.

Monkeys tend to always talk way too much most often before they even start thinking.  Of course anyone who has been to the monkey cage at the zoo already knows this.  Monkeys as a rule live paycheck to paycheck saving nothing.  But we love the monkeys because they are the big thinkers and the dreamers.  Unfortunately though most often they fail to follow through with their ideas because they’re on to the next dream.

If you are trying to prospect a Monkey you have to be able to go with whatever flow might happen to come along.  You need to be dramatic but to the point without a lot of details.  If you can show them how your business is fun they are in and they love to network.  Keep things fun and monkeys will pay attention because they are all about the fun.  A one-liner for the monkeys would be “Where’s the party?” or “Have you heard the joke about… or the one about… or the… and then there was… “.

But why is important to understand these personality types?

Each one has their strengths and weaknesses and each in their own way can benefit your business.  You have to know how to present information to them so they want to join your business and how to help motivate them once they are in.

Knowing the dominant animal factor in an individual prospect (and do keep in mind everyone is a mix of all the animals) will allow you to:

• Reduce personality clashes
• Have instant rapport with your prospects and business partners.
• Win friends (and influence people)
• Gain an unfair advantage over your competition
• Have fun prospecting

You’ll notice the points above lend themselves to one or more of the animals I’ve discussed.  When presenting to a mixed audience that’s another skill you’ll need to master.

The first step is to identify your own dominant animal factor.  Personally I’m primarily an Owl (which would explain why it took me a month or more to get this blog going but now I’m sticking to it daily) with a sensitive Koala side who loves to party with the Monkeys when he gets the chance.  And somewhere in that mix, given the right set or circumstances, you may hear the Lion in me roar.

Once you know your animal, then its time to really listen to others so that you can identify theirs and use your unfair advantage to have fun building your business.

If you really want to take the time and master the animals then you should get a hold of the following materials:

• The Animal Factor – Personalities for Success! (audio), by Jeffery Combs
• The Magic of Colors (audio), by Jerry Clark
• How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
• Prospecting with Purpose (audio), by Jeffery Combs
• How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication, by Larry King

Listen to the animals and have fun prospecting!

If we could talk to the animals,
learn their languages
Think of all the things we could discuss
If we could walk with the animals,
talk with the animals,
Grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals,
And they could squeak and squawk
and speak and talk to us.

So I’ve covered the “hands-off” Lions and the “why can’t we all be friends” Koalas, now for the overly “anal”-ytical owls.

Like the Koalas, Owls also represent approximately 35% of the population.  They are slow and systematic but not because they are procrastinating… they are analyzing everything to death.  In fact they have missed out on deals because they were analyzing it so long that the deal vanished.  They want all the details about your compensation plan so that they can figure out how to do anything with an exact formula.  So if there is a Jedi mind control bonus they will know exactly what steps are required to obtain it.

Owls are great a follow-through and of the animals they are the most organized.  While others might find tasks boring, owls will take them on and persist in completing them.  Though overly analytical and prone to analysis paralysis, once committed to a plan they will work through it till its completed and not let anything stand in their way.  The only problem is that they think the best time to decide something is “next month”.

When dealing with Owls, don’t dummy it down or cut to the bottom line like a Lion and don’t try and bring up family or friends like a Koala.  For an owl you want to present them with all the details, load them up with facts and websites and then let them sell themselves. If you can show them a system and give them calls to listen to and websites to read up and understand everything and answer their questions when they ask then they will come back to you in a couple of weeks ready to get started (or ready for more information).

Owls want to be right and they want you to be precise and organized in your presentation to them.  They don’t like things to be messy or disorganized.  Don’t give an owl a story or anecdote just the facts and statistics to back up whatever you are telling them.

Owls will find their path in the business based on optimizing the steps necessary to reach the bonus level they want to get to and will build the business that way.  To sum up an Owl in a one-liner it would be “Shut up and give me the facts”.  Though they aren’t quite that abrupt they definitely prefer documents and facts instead of conversation.

Next the monkeys.

In part 1 I discussed the Lions and how to interact with them.  Now onto a fuzzier subject…

Koalas

They represent approximately 35% of the population.  This group truly are the teddy-bears.  They give from their heart and when it comes to business… skip the business.

Koalas want to take care of everyone, they are nurturers and in the corporate world they are the nurses, teachers, and human resources staff.  Don’t try to pin them down as to when they can do something because their time is not their own, they give it to everyone else.

Koalas want to get along with everyone but that doesn’t mean they will listen to your pitch (especially from a Lion).  When you’re working with a koala you have to act like a koala. This means no excitement and no talking about large dollar amounts because a koala will see this as hyperbole.  In fact talk to them about their family, friends or their latest vacation plans.  Then if you want to talk about business you talk about how they will benefit others or the economy or the environment with the products and/or the business.  Why?  Because they want to get along with and be accepted by everyone.

Once you have a Koala in your organization you then have to present things to them with no interruptions, without talking down to them, patiently, and pleasantly.  If you want them to excel, let them know their input matters and their feelings do to.  Make them aware of the benefits they are bringing to the marketplace and how they are a strong member of your team.

Remember that a Koala will take things personally so you will have to help them deal with any form of rejection. And keep in mind they are slower to decide things doing thing when it “feels” right.

Being part of a team is important to a Koala which is why they can create phenomenal organizations with everyone helping out and doing their part.  They can get along with all the other animals (even the Lions… to a point).

Summing up Koalas in a one-liner would be to say “Teamwork makes the Dream work” or “Lets all be one big happy family”.

So unline the lions, when handling Koalas remember its “hands on”.

In part three I will talk about the wise Owls.